Ever wondered how the teaspoons in your galley disappear?

[ChrisE]

This article in the British Medical Journal will help

 

[Gin]

That's all very well and it's good to know that researchers can earn a living doing such worthwhile investigations.

However, it doesn't explain where the hell my sharp vegetable knife went some months ago, from the cutlery tray where it was kept, and from where it couldn't have escaped without inside help.

Suggestions please by way of thesis preferred

 

[tcm]

ChrisE has obviously got it - the disappearing teaspoon hypothesis is merely a smokescreen.

 

[ParaHandy]

an advanced industrialised society would react to the colossal spoon loss evidenced in this piece of useful research by a program of cost reduction, spoon empowerment and advanced spoon design research to ensure the modality of surreptitious spoon movement could be contained within an envelope of sustainability vis a vis manufacturing resources and the health budget. To that end I would propose a "spoon in-patients" department be created in every hospital to encourage the missing spoons to return. Staff would be trained in spoon rehab and a government target of 50% recovery in the first year, climbing to 90% in the tenth year would be set for this flagstone of the government's policy ...

 

[AliM]

Brilliant paper. It's good to know that the BMJ has a sense of humour. I've pinned it up in our own tearoom.

Actually, in my experience biros and screwdrivers have an even shorter half-life.

 

[Sgeir]

Everyone knows that the teaspoon elves take them.

I have noticed lately that I no longer lose combs.

 

[ParaHandy]

and ... erm ... socks?

 

[Norman_E]

So that's why British Rail tearooms used to tie them to the counter.

 

[Sgeir]

which reminds me, DaveS had these left over from the last Chentleman's Cruise:

Bring back any memories? /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[ChrisE]

Is this sock stuff threadbare drift?

 

[Evadne]

Brtitish Rail would be prosecuted nowadays

It has been illegal since the 2002 freedom of cutlery act to keep a teaspoon or any utensil in captivity. Anyone who tried it would find themselves picketed by "Greenspoons", then banged up in the nick for life.

 

[ParaHandy]

humph ... speak fer yersrl' mon ... but yin'd be a shoo in fer ra next turner prize

 

[Kilter]

undoubtedly deep sixed along with the veg peelings...there's one of mine somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic...thanks crew!

 

[DaveS]

Re: Turner Prize

Damn! Never thought of that...

Three socks: in themselves mere mundane undergarments, but when placed in this studied juxtaposition what hidden messages are revealed? The variations in size, colour and texture are surely symbolic of the inherent contradictions of the post-modern neo-reconstructive western paradigm. And why three? And why socks? And why does each displayed object consist of what convention constrains us to regard as an incomplete part of an essentially dualistic functional partnership? We cannot tell - we can only wonder, struck dumb by the fundamental rightness of the concept and its ultimately meaningful symbolism. This truly is a concept whose time has come and is richly deserving of the highest accolades...